U. Bucks Couple Sue Palisades District Over Alleged Damage

January 09, 1991|by MARY GAGNIER, The Morning Call

An Upper Bucks couple filed a lawsuit this week against Palisades School District and engineering and construction firms building Palisades Middle School, saying their property has suffered extensive water damage and pollution since ground was broken for the school.

Thomas and Catherine Charles own property adjacent to the 37-acre, $9.4 million construction project at Route 412 and Meginnes Road in Nockamixon Township. They are seeking in excess of $20,000 from Palisades, engineers Gilmore and Associates of New Britain, and Biehn Construction of Quakertown.

The suit, filed by Allentown attorneys Scott B. Allinson and Jeffrey A. Bartges, says water discharged by a detention basin at the school flows onto the Charles property, causing silting and erosion damage in excess of $10,000.

Also, the suit says, the plaintiffs "have suffered the loss of all life and vegetation in a pond located on their property, including trout fish, naturally occurring wildlife and vegetation in the pond basin." Further, the couple says they have been forced to remove prize race horses from their land "because of the dangers posed by tainted water sources on their property."

The plaintiffs, the suit said, "will be forced to incur costs for cleaning, debris removal, dredging, earth moving, landscape restoration, fish pond re-stocking and life regeneration to the pond."

The suit says the storm-water system was negligently designed and built, was not properly monitored and has artificially altered the natural path of storm-water runoff, "increasing its velocity, rate and volume."

The couple also is asking the court to order the defendants to repair the property and restore it to its original state, and to redesign and rebuild the detention basin.